Tor's Account of the Goat story
Heard of a man with a farmstead to the East missing his daughter. Mostly I want to know more about what kind of man has a farmstead in a place like this, so we go to investigate, see if we can help him and get on his good side. He’s left his bow behind at the pub, so we bring it along. Don’t know much about ranged weapons, but our fighters are impressed, so I figure it’s a pretty nice one. Doesn’t look like something you’d want to lose. Since Eisa knows the coastline already, we go that way first, eastwards along the beach, then cut upwards to the forest. Our directions are to go to the woods and follow the lights, so we have to wait for dark. When the sun sets, small dancing globes of light appear in the underbrush. Grung people come out and try to catch them in nets, but we chase them away, and they leave without causing us much trouble. Being the only one what speaks Sylvan, I talk to the lights, which are actually tiny girls. I guess they like that I speak their language, because they talk to me instead of turning me into a goat like they did to Rydar, who didn’t speak to them right, but tried to pick one of them up. First I tell them we want to help a man find his daughter, and that makes one of them real upset, and then I tell them that we’d like our friend Rydar not to be a goat anymore. Well, they say they can help with both things, but my friends are tired from waiting around all day, so they turn us into owls so we can make the journey better. At least, I get turned into an owl, and I think Angus does, but I don’t know about Rydar or Eisa or Haegan, I think they might be walking anyways. Since I’m an owl, I don’t remember much. At the farmstead, we all turn into our right shapes, and the tiny girls turn into right-size girls and introduce us to the man we’re looking for. Turns out he’s their father, and he’s some kind of Fey Lord. The missing daughter is their sister, which explains why they were so upset. He, Lord Kairen that is, says his daughter has been taken away by people Angus seems to think are called UnSeelies, and for some reason (a good one, I’m sure) he can’t approach them right then, so he needs us to sneak up and see for him. He gives us a right noble feast and we all feel strong enough, so we agree to it. To help us out, he gives me an axe that can I can teleport to if it hits my mark good and solid. Now my mind is a bit fuzzy on how we got to the place he says to go to, because time and space bend a bit strange around Fey. Anyhow we did it, we seemed to have arrived in the middle of some kind of sacrifice, and the girl herself is tied down to the altar inside a ruined temple. It’s dark all around, like the light is being sucked out of the air everywhere. Even I have a bit of a hard time seeing aright. We mostly come up by stealth, as Lord Kairen told us they couldn’t see us coming like they could with him. There are two sorts, guards outside, and warlock-types, running the show inside. Now Kairen has told us that these outside guards might be some of his people what has been corrupted in a way, and they might not be beyond saving. We don’t want to be killing any of his children, so we try and get around them more than killing them. The warlock guys, now, they seem more beyond hope. They’re obviously the ones controlling the guards. In the fight that follows, we kill some guards, and others flee, but we do kill all the warlocks. When they die, they crumble to dust. One of the guards turns back at the end, too, and says he’ll come back with us and return to his Father. Kairen is pretty chuffed about that. He says I can keep the axe, and though he gives us no gold, he says we can count on him to stand our friend if we need it. My mind is running towards having his help guarding a quarry in the area, but that’s another quest for another day, so we thank him and head home.